Page 45 of Forget Me Not

Cal’s answer was remarkably unfazed. “That’s Ray. He’s here to be my bodyguard for the day. And you haven’t said anything illegal or threatening or creepy, and you won’t, so he’s going to stay over there and frown—but only because his head hurts. Anyway, your colors are fine, and he trusts my view of such things. Or, he normally does.” Cal hurried on from that topic. “Now, if you don’t mind, please, tell us again what your employer said, exactly, so we can look into it, and hopefully get the attorneys at Bluebell involved. But remember,weare not attorneys. We’re here to pry into the company, sure, but also to get you some help.”

Bluebell was a legal aid service with an office in the village. They must have been one of the places which hired Cal and Benny to look into things for them.

Ray forcibly turned his attention to the sound of book pages being flipped one by one, and a small human child’s giggle over a beeping toy, and the rabbit-quick sound of Callalily’s heart. He glanced over once or twice, noting Benny’s serious expression as he listened and occasionally scribbled something in a notebook.

When the interview, or whatever it was, appeared to be over, Cal reached into Benny’s shirt pocket for two business cards. One, apparently, for them, and the other for Bluebell, which Cal explained. The human was still anxiously turning his phone around and around, but he nodded jerkily in response to Benny telling him that it might be a few days before the legal aid center would contact him, and meanwhile, for him to keep quiet and not talk about any part of the situation, not in writing and definitely not online. If he wanted help with his job search, that had to go through Rainbow Wings, and unfortunately, there was a wait for what services were available. Mental health services too, although according to Benny, that was nearly impossible to get into at the moment and the man ought to try some sort of help group. Benny had cards for those in a neat little wallet of its own, but the other human regarded that nervously and shook his head. But he did smile, once, in relief and gratitude before hurrying off.

Ray had caught some of the interview and could guess some of the rest. The human’s bosses had been making him and some of the other employees sign petitions, among many other inappropriate things, and had fired him, nominally for a different reason, after he had complained. The human wanted his unemployment money. He wasn’t out to cause trouble—his words.

The level of caution Cal and Benny were displaying suggested it was more complex than that, and the trouble would likely be made regardless of what the man wanted. Plenty of businesses did that, attempted to crush anyone who spoke up. It cost them more time and money than just doing the right thing would have cost them, but it prevented others from speaking out or blowing any whistles in the future.

There were agencies that were supposed to help there. State agencies, Federal laws. Human laws, human rules. But they kept changing those. Even humans must find them overwhelming. Roadblocks made of papers, lawyers and court fees, even just paying for parking around the courthouse, all took a toll on those who were already in a tricky financial situation. Lawsuits caused stress. He supposed that was why Benny had suggested the support groups and the other services. Something like that could not be done alone.

Not many things were supposed to be done alone, a part of Ray whispered, but that was the wolf, and Ray didn’t let much of the wolf into the human world,thishuman world. Wolf values did not mesh with those of the companies like that, or the community college Ray had gone to, or much of City Hall. Or the PD.

Ray swallowed and put a hand to the back of his neck, where Cal had rested his hand the night before. The spot was still faintly cool from the ice pack Benny had given him.

Cal and Benny stayed at the table for a few more minutes, conferring quietly, raging, he suspected, behind all their playful tossing of ideas back and forth.

“He should have taken the cards,”Benny said again, sighing.“He’s probably going to abandon it, halfway in.”From the way Benny said it, this had happened before. Ray would imagine it happened often. Witnesses got scared, got exhausted, all the time. Ray could calm them, protect them, but there wasn’t much else he could offer them. What happened in a courtroom was out of his hands.

He growled to himself as the other two returned and they all got in and Benny made sure everyone was buckled up. Then he said, “What company was it that he worked for?”

“Hush,” Cal answered shortly, drawing a snort of laughter from Benny.

“Hush?” Ray repeated, not exactly shocked since Penn often shushed him, but nonetheless complaining. “I just wanted to—”

“Let the rest of us work on justice for a while, Ray. You heal. Speaking of—” He directed an inquiring look to his friend, and, knowing each other as well as they seemed to, Benny responded, “We could spend time out of the office today, while the weather is still nice.”

Ray sat back, as much as he could, and reached for his phone only to realize he’d forgotten it at home.

“There, there,” Cal said without much sympathy, after Ray heaved a sigh. “You needed a rest anyway.”

***

WITHOUT ANY sort of discussion about where to go, Benny took them to a local fast food chain restaurant, which still had outdoor seating despite the crisper fall weather. They had just had breakfast. Cal had eaten two breakfasts. Possibly, he wasn’t hungry and just thought Ray was.

Ray was, as a matter of fact, even though he shouldn’t have been, but he didn’t appreciate Cal’s gleeful, “Starve a cold, feed a werewolf!” as he heaved himself out of the car.

The restaurant had just switched over to its lunch and dinner menu. Benny shrugged and ordered for all of them, as though he knew Ray’s tastes. The fact that he did made Ray frown harder.

Benny and Cal had their laptops with them, as well as Cal’s shoulder bag, and the moment they selected a place to sit—inside, because Cal decided he didn’t want to put on a shirt—they set up shop at a table with bench seats. The two of them were on one side, Ray on another. They had everything down to a routine, including Cal going to fetch their drinks.

The staff seemed used to them. “It’s nice to not always work at home,” Benny explained, catching some of Ray’s bewilderment.

Ray sat down more slowly. “I can go sit elsewhere,” he offered, certain it was only a matter of time until they took over his side of the table as well.

“No, no, no,” Benny assured him. “You are consulting today. Which you do for us anyway, but now I have another excuse to write off this meal.”

“Wish Penn would give us something to work on with your case, Ray,” Cal muttered as he returned, chewing on a straw.

None of them seemed to actually consider Ross the one behind Ray’s current predicament, but Ray took the opportunity to continue his questioning anyway.

“Explain to me,” he began in what could have been a purr except his tight grip on the edge of the table, “why Ross thought killing people would give him a chance with me? Ignoring the fact that I am not a recklessly violent monster,” Cal coughed in the middle of that but Ray didn’t stop to feel hurt or angry or curious, “didn’t he think my attachment to you was an obstacle? Even grocery store romance novels play up the m—that aspect.”

Cal was frozen except for thebrrpsound of his wings hitting the upholstered back of the seat. “I suddenly have an image of a teenaged Ray secretly reading some of those books despite knowing that humans wrote them and the facts were all wrong. It makes me wish I had a heaving bosom so I, too could beRavished by the Werewolf.”

“I am sitting right here,” Benny objected, reaching over to tap on the keyboard of Cal’s laptop and then point to something on the screen.

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